Valdai 2017: Reactions from a newbie
I promised a readout of my impressions of the Valdai Club meeting. This was the first time I had been invited to attend this event and I was curious to…
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Russia
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New Book: The Crimean Period of Russian History (in Russian)
Sergei Medvedev's collection of essays, The Crimean Period of Russian History (Moscow, Individuum Publishers, 2017), evokes the key political, social, and historical debates in Russia over the past three years. Chekists and journalists, wars…
Plentiful Harvests in Eurasia: Why Some Farms in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Armenia Are Thriving Despite Institutional Challenges
(PONARS Policy Memo) The conventional wisdom about agriculture reforms in post-Soviet countries is that they failed to achieve their stated objectives. This assessment is largely based on studies that focused on…
Putin Hosts Another Valdai to Draw Attention Away From Russia’s Stagnation
(EDM) The annual meeting of the Valdai discussion club provides a unique opportunity for many Western experts to “meet” with President Vladimir Putin. This year, the Kremlin sought to build…
Eurasian Family versus European Values: The Geopolitical Roots of “Anti-Genderism” in Armenia
(PONARS Policy Memo) Since late 2012, the terms “gender” and “gender equality” in the Armenian discursive space have become enveloped in undertones of tremendous negativity and even used as insults. The…
The Media & the Messages in Putin’s Russia
(Mobilizing Ideas blog) With all due respect to Marshall McLuhan, he may have got it backwards. In Russia, at least, the message has become the medium. By most measures, there has probably…
A New Russian Holiday Has More Behind It Than National Unity: the Political Functions of Historical Commemorations
(AJPH) Abstract: This study seeks to address both the theoretical and empirical aspects of national holidays' selection. Noting a breadth of historical events that a state may choose to celebrate,…
Extrajudicial Violence in Donbas and Its Consequences for Ukraine
(PONARS Policy Memo) On May 7, 2015, three servicemen of the Ukrainian armed forces went on a mission to find separatist collaborators in Sartana, a small town in the Donetsk region. They…
Russia Is Steered Back Toward Petro-Stagnation
(EDM) The “historic” trip of King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud to Moscow, last week (October 4–7) was an affair long on ceremony, featuring a massive delegation, but rather uncertain regarding…
Familiar Refrains
(Moscow-on-Thames) US Vice President Mike Pence walks out of an NFL game because players knelt. President Donald Trump considers firing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, we’re told, because the latter called…